BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – After a 5-1 drubbing from the Sound Tigers in Bridgeport on Friday night, the Wolf Pack rebounded perfectly led by outstanding performances by Boo Nieves, Yegor Rykov, and Igor Shesterkin as Hartford beat Providence, 4-1, and in the process skated back into first place, percentage points ahead of the Bruins.
The win was the franchise’s 100th against the Bruins in the 23 years that these two teams have battled.
The Wolf Pack record increases to 18-8-2-5 (43 points), and they maintain their unbeaten streak when leading after two periods (14-0-1-2).
“That is one of our biggest improvements. We like going into the third period with a lead,” Nieves said. “I couldn’t say we were like that the last several years, but that shows our confidence. It’s one of the reasons we have the confidence, and that’s why we’ve been at or near first place, I can safely say, so far this season.”
The Wolf Pack are also 13-1-0-2 at home. The Pack didn’t win their 13th game at home last season until February 13th against the Toronto Marlies.
The Wolf Pack started the game in the fashion you want after a tough loss. They came out with energy and a determination to correct their mistakes from the previous night.
“We had a meeting after the game last night. We had to address the things we did wrong and what we could do better. It wasn’t (terrible) mistakes, but things we did wrong that came back to haunt us. We made sure we came out fast and had the puck in their end (of the ice) and to make plays at a high speed, and we did that,” Nieves said.
He and Vincent LoVerde both wore an A on their jersey while captain, Steven Fogarty, is on recall with the New York Rangers.
With a vociferous Saturday night holiday crowd of 5,625 to inspire them, the Wolf Pack returned the favor by getting the crowd into the game early by striking on a power play.
The team launched five shots on goal in the first half of the power play and finally connected on the second half.
Nieves took a pass from Yegor Rykov in full stride, and like a locomotive at full speed, slipped around Bruins’ forward Oskar Steen. Nieves sent a short pass to Phil Di Giuseppe who one-timed his shot to the short-side at 2:12 for his tenth goal of the season and gave his team a 1-0 lead.
What makes the goal more remarkable was that Nieves wasn’t supposed to be on the ice.
“Boo made one heck of play there, but Boo wasn’t suppose to be on the power play,” Pack head coach Kris Knoblauch told Howlings. “We had a big face off, so he was out there (to take it) and then usually (he) comes off. The irony is he lost it. While he was skating back up the ice on the breakout, he was talking to his linemates about what his responsibility on (the) breakouts are and he knew what he wanted to do. Sometimes its best to let them play and not over-coach them. Sometimes, not having a plan, works out well.”
For Nieves, his familiarity with Di Guiseppe from their days as Michigan Wolverines came in handy.
“I played a lot of hockey with him at Michigan. All I know is, I have to beat one guy and he’s the one guy who can make a shot like that, and he could have two or three tonight.”
The Pack got their second goal as Vinni Lettieri sent the puck to Tim Gettinger in the slot. He snapped another 35-foot wrist shot against the grain that sailed past Bruins netminder, Max Lagace, for his seventh goal of the season. It also turned out to be his third game winner of the year.
“It was a great play by Vinni coming up the wall,” Gettinger said. “I was just able to get to the middle and get the shot off and was lucky it went in. Personal success comes from team success when everybody is contributing every individual succeeds.”
His teammate Nieves had high praise for him.
“To be honest, I don’t think he gets enough credit. He has size. He hits. He has been one of our best penalty killers. He can do it all. He makes my job much easier.”
In the third period, the Wolf Pack did their best to limit the Bruins any scoring opportunities and when they did manage to get one, Igor Shesterkin (30 saves) and the team defense kept the door shut.
“I can’t say enough about how well he has played. He’s given us the confidence because we know he is back there and is gonna stop those pucks. He doesn’t say a lot out there, but he sure stops a lot of pucks. I’m not sure if there is a correlation in that,” Nieves said with a laugh.
The Wolf Pack took a commanding 3-0 lead when Yegor Rykov was below the goal line on the left-wing side with the puck. He fired a perfect diagonal pass to Vitali Kravtsov in the right-wing circle. The puck was in-and-out of the net by the time Lagace came across the crease to make a play on it.
It was Kravtsov’s second goal of the season.
“It was a very nice goal, and he nearly had another off a face-off that just went over the crossbar on the power-play. He is blocking shots, that race back last night to prevent a goal, he is in a good place right now,” Knoblauch said. “You can’t play one way on offense. We like how his defensive game is evolving.”
Rykov’s continued play with the puck adds a whole new dimension.
“His strength is his play with the puck. He is so composed with it, skates with his head-up and has excellent awareness of where he and his teammates are on the ice,” the Pack coach said.
The Bruins struck back nine seconds later after Jonna Koppanen took a drop pass from Pavel Shen and then with all sorts of open real estate drifted to the top of the right-wing circle and snapped a wrist shot over Shesterkin’s outstretched glove for his seventh of the season.
The Wolf Pack regained a three-goal lead as Beleskey was on the doorstep and took a Nieves pass and backhanded his seventh of the season past Lagace at 14:09.
It was all Wolf Pack with a 14-6 shot advantage in the first period.
Veteran defenseman Mason Geersten again set the tone for the game against a key divisional rival with a jarring, crunching hit on Trent Frederic like he did a week ago and then got into a scrap with Brendan Woods.
“Mason’s been awesome. With him you know every night what he’s going to bring every shift. He moves the puck out of the zone real well. He’s also awesome off the ice. He’s always backing us up. We really appreciate what he brings to this team.”
The coach was in complete agreement.
“He’s very important to this team. He’s good moving the puck and his physical assets have been a key in some of the big games we have played this season like tonight.”
LINES::
Nieves – Beleskey – Gropp
O’Regan – Kravtsov – Di Giuseppe
Jones – Lettieri – Gettinger
Zerter-Gossage – Fox – McBride
Raddysh – LoVerde
Keane – Geersten
Rykov – Ebert
SCRATCHES:
Patrick Newell (Upper Body – Day-to-Day)
Jeff Taylor (Healthy)
Lias Andersson (Suspended)
Gabriel Fontaine (Shoulder Surgery – Season-Ending)
NOTES:
Knoblauch hopes Newell will be back for Tuesday’s New Year’s Eve game.
Fogarty played just 2:46 and had one hit in the Rangers 5-4 OT win in Toronto and wore number 29.
Fogarty, the team’s second leading scorer, had to make sure his passport was in his travel bag when he left. He’s in Toronto with the Rangers, then travels to Edmonton on Tuesday, Calgary Thursday and Vancouver a week from today.
The Pack are now undefeated in the season series thus far at 5-0-0-1.
The Wolf Pack lead the all-time home record in this classic AHL series is 55-31-5-7 as well in the overall mark 100-69-14-9.
The Wolf Pack leading scorer in the series is defenseman Darren Raddysh (1-5-6) and Jack Studnicka of Providence is tops against the Wolf Pack (3-1-4).
Newest Wolf Pack Dillan Fox wore number 23 and is the 32nd player on the Wolf Pack this season.
Wolf Pack Fan Jersey of the night – #39 Cory Larose.
UConn skated to a 2-2 tie against St. Lawrence in Hanover, NH at the 31st annual Ledyard Classic at Thompson Arena at Dartmouth College..
Senior Alexander Payusov scored with point three seconds left in regulation with late game starter junior Bradley Stone (London, England) was pulled for an extra attacker with 1:26 left.
Stone (21 saves) made his first collegiate start because sophomore Tomas Vomacka missed his first start of the season because of illness.
Stone stopped eight of nine shots in a tournament shootout (the game officially is a tie for their NCAA records). Huskies sophomore defenseman Wyatt Newpower had the other UConn goal and Carter Turnbull tallied the shootout winner ended the nine round mini-marathon.
